Five consecutive years of drought takes a dangerous toll on Rajasthan

For five agonising years, the sprawling desert belt of western Rajasthan has endured a drought that seems as if it will never end. Last month, alarming reports began trickling in of hundreds of people dead or dying in the remote villages of the state.

So far, the Government has stubbornly denied that people have died due to starvation and, last week, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was taken on a day-long tour of some of the drought-hit areas and expressed satisfaction at the progress on the construction of the Rajasthan canal and the "relief work" by the state Government in the drought-hit areas.

Even though local villagers complained to members of her entourage about starvation deaths in many families, it was obvious that the state Government was merely making political capital out of the prime minister's visit. Most of her day was spent in motoring down the banks of the canal where she was proudly shown the progress and the work that was being done. Mrs Gandhi's sympathy for the drought-affected villagers would have been more acute had the state officials taken her to the more remote areas which India Today Correspondent Ramesh Menon toured last fortnight.

Covering a total of 1,500 km in the more inaccessible districts of Jodhpur, Jaisalmer and Barmer by tractor, jeep and on foot, Menon discovered that the state and local administration is totally ignorant of the extent of the calamity and the manner in which people are succumbing to disease and death owing to lack of food. It is inconceivable that 35 years after independence, there are thousands of villagers who have not enough food to eat while the Government proudly proclaims foodgrain sufficiency and the success of the green revolution. The truth, as Menon discovered, is tragically different from what the Government would have people believe. His report:

"I have no money to buy medicines. Please ask the doctors to keep giving me free medicines till I recover. I do not want to die." Rawtaram Meghwal,40 TB patient.

Death, it is said, is a great leveller. It spares no one. However, in the drought-hit desert belt of Rajasthan, it is singling out the desperately poor.

In the last three months, within a week of succumbing to ailments such as fever, bronchitis, pneumonia and other respiratory diseases, hundreds of debilitated villagers have fallen to the Grim Reaper.

Most of them were middle-aged, but five consecutive years of drought had left them susceptible to almost any marauding colony of germs. What is more, they could not afford to travel to government medical centres for aid - a round trip often means an exhausting ride by camel or jeep - the only forms of transport - for as much as 40 km.

While hundreds of households in Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Barmer, Bikaner and Churu districts are in mourning, the state Government insists that the villagers did not die of sickness brought on by malnutrition. It accepts a figure of only 180 deaths spread out in half a dozen villages in four districts. The Government is yet to send medical teams into the desert to scout for the sick. In fact, medical and administration officials have only bothered to go to villages where deaths were reported by Rajasthan Patrika, a Jaipur daily.

Callous Reaction: Rajasthan Chief Minister Shiv Charan Mathur, when asked about the situation, remarked: "People die everywhere." His reaction characterises the insensitive attitude of the state Government which is trying to play things down and make it look as if the deaths occurred over six months and were not all that much out of the ordinary.

State Health Minister Khet Singh Rathor maintains coolly that he has no reports of people dying. Health Department Secretary R.J. Majithia says that he is not aware that people are dying in the desert belt. The authorities' attempts to turn a blind eye to the whole affair are considerably aided by the fact that death registers are not maintained in the villages and that village headmen do not report the deaths to the district administration.

For example, at Matora village, 30 km from Osiyan town in Jodhpur district, over 30 villagers, half of them below 45, have died in the last two months of fever and pneumonia. But the register supposed to be maintained by the local health worker and the teacher at the village school does not mention the deaths. Wails Bhom Singh, 40, a farmer: "They are dying like never before."

"My sister-in-law and her three sons died in a span of five days. We are all battling with hunger." Hararam Bhil,villager, Solankiya Tala

For the sick at Matora, going to a doctor is an ordeal: they must travel to Osiyan. The bus makes one round trip a day and the fare is Rs 7, which most of the villagers cannot afford.

As most government dispensaries do not stock the necessary medicines, the patients must buy them privately, and this, too, they cannot afford to do. The indifferent food is no help, either. One Matora resident, dressed in tattered clothes, brandishes a handful of poor quality wheat, saying bitterly: "Do you people in cities eat such bad wheat? The Government gives us only such wheat which even animals in the city would refuse to eat."

Disease Havoc: The story of drought-weakened bodies and merciless poverty is repeated everywhere. Khojaram Dudi, a panchayat member at Padasala village in Jodhpur district, 60 km from Jodhpur town, affirms that the 30-odd people who have died in the last two months - 20 were children below seven - were poor and so could not take advantage of medical facilities which are, moreover, 20 km away.

Padasala village has about 3,000 residents and 400 families: bacillary dysentery, a highly infectious disease caused by polluted water, is wreaking havoc at present and many villagers are down with fever and are passing bloody stools. In a hut surrounded by sand two feet deep, the gift of a passing sandstorm, Depudi, 1, and Memli, 4, huddle in a corner. Says their father Chotharam Meghwal, 28: "They are getting worse day by day. They have been suffering from diarrhoea for three weeks, but I have no money for medical treatment."

Osiyan and Phalodi tehsils are the worst affected areas of Jodhpur district. Admits a panchayat official at Osiyan: "There has been an increase in the death rate here in the last two months due to disease." Asks Sevaram Chaudhari, 35, a labourer: "How can you expect us to be healthy? If we are lucky we eat bajra rotis with chillies. Vegetables are consumed only by the rich. Ninety of us from Harlai village have been employed in famine relief projects for a month. We are supposed to be paid every week, but for a month we have not received a paisa. With whom can we fight?"

It is the same litany everywhere. Sakur Khan, 43, of Bhikambor village in Jodhpur district affirms: "If many of us are falling sick and dying it is because we have not eaten decent food for a long time. The luckiest of us eat a maximum of five bajra rotis a day." The rotis are not enough to keep disease at bay. Harlai villageis 23 km from Osiyan and has a population of around 1,600. In the last two months, about 20 people have died.

Some had fever, others were vomiting blood. The nearest doctor is at Osiyan. Says Chaudhari: "Many of us could not afford a doctor." The story at Palli village, 35 km from Osiyan, is similar. Out of a population of 4,000, 50 have died in the last two months: some had fever, others suffered from stomach ailments.

Healthy Islands: Significantly, well-to-do villages such as Lohawat, also in Osiyan tehsil, have shown no increase in the death rate. The reason is that Lohawat is populated by the Bishnoi and Jat community who are fairly affluent. Most of them make their living by smuggling opium. Suraram Chaudhari, sarpanch of Tapra village in Barmer district, explains simply: "If you have money, you can get treated. Otherwise you will die like the 50-odd poor villagers in Tapra, Kaludi and Jagsa villages of Pachpadra tehsil of Barmer."

"Eight of my cows died in the last two months. There is very little to eat. Now, I am fighting to stay alive." Kishan Singh, 49, a patient.

Incidentally, Dr S.L. Singhvi, the medical officer at Barmer who
visited villages in Chhotan tehsil, agreed that the villagers ate only
bajra without vegetables or anything else, but insists that they are all healthy and cannot be called malnourished. Unfortunately, although
Singhvi made two trips to various villages, he did not examine any
patients as he presumed there were none.

A diametrically opposite view
comes from Dr Kesrimal Khatri, a Barmer physician: "All along the 150 km border with Pakistan, villagers are suffering from fever, bronchitis
and gastro-enteritis caused by consuming toomba seeds and lana grass, which leads to inflammation of the intestines. Malnutrition
caused by five consecutive droughts has considerably weakened the
resistance of the villagers."

Villages which have a doctor or
medical facilities close by have not suffered. Ramdeora, about 12 km
from Pokharan in Jaisalmer district, has a small hospital with a
full-time doctor and the health situation here is generally good,
although Pokharan tehsil is one of the worst affected by drought.

The
Government has also taken care to highlight cases where carelessness
cost lives. In Pokharan tehsil, seven of Amdeen Haji's 13 children died
in 10 days, of bronchitis and dysentery. Haji was a well-to-do farmer who could easily have afforded to transport his children 20 km to Pokharan
town. However, government officials also take care not to highlight the
cases where the people were too poor to look for medical succour tens of kilometres away, as in Solankiya Tala.

Solankiya Tala village in
Jodhpur district with a population of over 7,000, is a study in
government bungling. It is part of Shergarh constituency, represented by Health Minister Rathor in the Assembly. The village sprawls over 23 km, and in many cases one house is 8 km away from another. The nearest
medical aid centre is about 10 km from one end of the village: this
means that a patient from the other end has to travel around 60 km - on
camel back or by tractor, because even jeeps get stuck in the sand.

From January until mid-April, 75 villagers had died of minor ailments. Soon after the Jodhpur Collector, S.D. Srivastav, admitted that 55 villagers had died by March 16, Rathor said that only 25 had died. By this time, the newspapers had got hold of the story and Sarpanch Narpat Singh produced a list of the dead. The Government then explained that the 75 had died in a period of seven months beginning October 1982. However, enquiries revealed that only three had died between October 1982 and December 1982.

"I have 40 acres of land lying bare since five years. Now, I'm a pauper with no medicine."Uttam Singh, 52, seriously afflicted with jaundice.

The Government hastily set up a free medical camp in Solankiya Tala. The true extent of the rot became evident when, between March 11 and March 31, as many as 1,469 patients were treated.

Many living at great distances from the camp could not take advantage of the free clinic. And although it vociferously maintained that Solankiya Tala's residents were not starving, the Government rushed 1,000 kg of wheat to be distributed to the affected families. The Red Cross also despatched relief supplies.

Two famine relief projects were started, employing 625 villagers, although a government official admits that "many of them do not have the energy to work on relief projects". About 350 villagers were also receiving a dole of Rs 1.50 a day.

Uncertain Figures: No one, however, is quite sure of how many people have actually died at Solankiya Tala. Said Shrenidan

Bhoppavat, the patwari: "Even we do not know how many have died here in the last two months. In the remote areas of the village, the dead are cremated in the fields and no one ever gets to know about it." The causes of death are uncertain. No post-mortems were done; as a medical officer says, "We did not think it necessary to perform post-mortems." The first medical team reached Solankiya Tala in mid-March after 60 people had died, and listed most deaths as due to respiratory infection.

The various government doctors who went to the village all have differing views, although none of them, mentions the rampant malnutrition in the area. Said Dr Vijay-Krishna Lohra, chief medical health officer at Jodhpur: "It is just a coincidence that so many villagers died in Solankiya Tala. The media is just trying to blow it up and make it seem like malnutrition and starvation deaths."

A district administration team said that the deaths were due to prolonged fever, bron-cho-pneumonia and malaria. Two other government teams left out the malaria. A team composed of seven doctors from Delhi, Pune, Jodhpur and Jaipur, which visited Solankiya Tala last fortnight, blamed the heavily polluted water.

Rathor is trying to sell the view that the respiratory diseases were caused by the cold weather. He says with astonishing candour: "If the villagers in Solankiya Tala died, they are to blame. They did not bother to visit a free government doctor."

"Even the last rites of my son, Hanumandas could be done only after we went around asking for money."Bhurdas, 70.

The Government's efforts at medical aid do not seem to have impressed the villagers. Pleads Rawtaram Meghwal, 40. who is suffering from tuberculosis: "I have no money to buy medicines. Please ask the doctors to give me free medicines until I recover. I do not want to die."

Perhaps the tragedy that epitomises Solankiya Tala's situation, indeed, western Rajasthan's situation, is that of Hanumandas. He died last month after a bout of fever. In a dark corner of his tumbledown hut sit his widow Jamudevi and her four children; she relates, how even on the day Hanumandas died, food had to be borrowed from a neighbour. His 70-year-old father Bhurdas adds that he could not be taken to a doctor as they had no money. Said he: "Even his last rites were performed only after we went around asking for money."

Stricken Villages: About 50 km from Pokharan, where India conducted its first nuclear test, is Chhayan village, with a population of around 3,500. According to Sarpanch Bagh Singh, 43 villagers - 23 of them under 20 - have died in and around Chhayan since January. District authorities maintain that only 26 have died.

This fortnight, they admitted that 75 villagers had died since January in Pokharan tehsil, in half a dozen villages; unofficial reports put the figure at over 125. In practically every village there are people bed-ridden with fever and stomach ailments. The nearest doctor is 50 km away at Pokharan. Laments Abdul Khan: "We will all die if something is not done to help us." Doctors who examined his wife Nabisa advised Khan to give her good food as she needed nourishment. Asks Khan: "Where is the food?"

Pokharan is one of the most backward areas of drought-stricken Jaisalmer. The road to Chhayan from Pokharan passes through miles and miles of arid land littered with cattle skeletons. Says Sang Singh, 65, a Chhayan villager: "We are reduced to such poverty that we even crush grass that camels eat and mix it with chappati flour to increase the quantity of food." Uttam Singh, prostrate with jaundice for a month, affirms: "I have 40 acres of land lying barren for five years. Now I'm a pauper with no money even to buy medicine."

Like all the villagers in the desert belt, the Chhayan villagers often find that they do not have enough bajra flour for even one chappati. So they mix a handful of flour in a few glasses of water, boil it and drink it as a soup. Says Sang Singh: "This at least makes us feel that our stomachs are full for a while."

More "nourishment" comes from toomba seeds collected from a plant growing wild in the desert; these are dried, powdered and mixed into bajra flour. Chhayan's children also scout for wild berries. In many villages, children have suffered the most, mostly from measles and pneumonia. In Loharki village, about 35 km from Pokharan, about 15 children, under 15, have died in the last two months.

"Even we do not know how many villagers have died in the last two months. In the remote areas of the village, the dead are cremated in the fields and no one gets to know about it."Shrenidan Bhoopavat,patwari, Solankiya Tala.

The desert is not the most hospitable of places. But even by the Thar's harsh standards, life for the approximately 1.70 crore people affected by the drought - of the state's 27 districts, 26 have been declared drought affected - is getting bleaker and bleaker.

Nothing symbolises this existence as well as the daily grind of families in Khara village in Phalodi tehsil in Jodhpur district. This village of over 3,000 people is 28 km from Phalodi town and has absolutely no supply of drinking water. Camel carts laden with brass and earthen pots leave Khara early in the morning for Phalodi, rest there the night, and return early the next morning for Khara. Day after day after day.

Corruption: If the barrenness of their existence is not enough, the few people who have managed to get work at famine relief projects are victims of injustice. Most of them are not paid the statutory minimum daily wage of Rs 7. Complains Rawat Singh, 35, of Baleshwar village in Shergarh tehsil: "We are asked to sign for Rs 7, but are paid only Rs 4." Pabuda Charan, 20, of Dhandhaniya village says helplessly: "If we protest, they will remove us from the relief work and we will die of hunger. Anyway, Rs 4 is a lot of money."

State Relief Minister Hanuman Prabhakar refutes charges that famine relief projects are riddled with corruption. Says he: "It is not possible and no cases of corruption have been brought to my notice." The politics of relief is evident. Shergarh, which has a block of 37 villages with a population of 70,000, 2,500 villagers have got jobs.

In the neighbouring Baleshwar block, which has 54 villages and a population of 80,000, only 1,000 labourers have secured jobs. Baleshwar villagers are bitter because they feel that Shergarh was given more attention as the head of its panchayat samiti is Kalyan Singh, nephew of Health Minister Rathor.

There are indications that the mills of the Government are. at long last, moving. The Health Department has decided to start five mobile pathological-cum-clinical units in the affected areas. The state Government is also planning to appoint village health guides by the end of May; these will be trained to administer basic medicines. The belated measures might go some way towards salving the state Government's conscience, but for most of the sick and despairing residents of Rajasthan's sandy belt, they will have come too late.

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